“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” — Carlos Castaneda
I read this today and at first I thought, of course, makes total sense. And then, I realized I just blindly believed what old Carlos said there and after some contemplation I came to the conclusion that I disagree, make that strongly disagree: being miserable takes lots and lots and lots more work and energy.
Imagine times when you felt strong and happy. Did it take great effort to feel that way? Did you have to really really work hard and go through any arduous process to feel joyful and strong?
Did being happy and joyful have your energy and motivations leaking, gushing, out of you like freakin Niagara falls and you felt there was nothing you could do about it to stop it, the way you usually feel when you’re really upset or miserable.
Or were you just happy?
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that living and walking in the strength of my Song is so so so much easier than living in the pain and misery of my masks.
For someone just starting out with finding and living their Song, that might be hard to imagine.
That’s because when we first start the adventure of learning about our Song we are still so addicted to our mask behavior that it seems much much easier to just follow our old habitual behavior and do what we’ve always done: run a mask.
It’s much easier to fall into our mask habits because that’s what we know, that’s what’s familiar, that’s what we have always known all our lives and always done all our lives and those are the behaviors which trigger the emotions we are so so so enormously addicted to.
And just giving in to the addiction and following the old habit and lure and unbelievably strong draw seems much easier in the moment, and it certainly helps a great deal that when we do follow our mask’s calling we do not have to take responsibility for anything.
So it seems easier to not resist the extraordinarily powerful, familiar calling of our masks and go with miserable, instead of making the effort of turning our attention back to our Song.
But, even then, while it’s easier to fall into our mask habits, it takes much much more energy out of us to run a mask than it ever, ever would being in the joy and strength of our Song.
When I think about times when I’ve been running a really juicy mask, where I’m completely on automatic pilot. I, me, myself, go to sleep and the mask takes over and runs the show of whatever is going on in my head, my feelings, my actions – everything – and I feel totally, to the bones, exhausted afterwards.
You’d think I’d be all rested, fit and ready to go, with being asleep and all through the ordeal, but no, I feel like I’ve been thrown under the bus and wonder where all my energy and spark for life went.
When I live my Song I feel strong, energized, happy, passionate about what I’m doing. I love my life, I love my wife, my family, my friends and everyone and everything else in my life.
When I’m in my Song I feel unbelievably fortunate to have this life, to have these relationships, to have this gift of experiencing and sharing and loving and laughing and fun and joy and passion.
It’s like WOW!! What’d I do to get here? I hope I remember so I can do it again next time.
I feel energized, capable, full of passion and excitement and gratitude for life and I feel rejuvenated and healthy and wealthy beyond measure.
When I’m running a mask I’m miserable and unable and, like any good mask junky, I blame whoever or whatever can conveniently fulfill that “it’s your fault” role at that moment. Nothing is ever good enough or the way it should be. I find fault and problems everywhere and feel like the victim of utter ignorance.
It’s like my friend sometimes expresses in jest, “there is nothing you can be sure of, except that you are surrounded by assassins.”
I feel tense, tied up in a knot, no fun, no joy, no energy flowing, except the resentment of all, or at least most everything and everyone, around me.
I feel sorry for myself and the people who are thrusting these terrible acts of ignorance upon me; actually, I don’t feel so sorry for them, I’m more pissed that they would do that to me. Can’t they see the genius within me and follow my lead? What is WRONG with THEM?
The whole mask trip is really a bunch of horse shit. It drains me of all, or most of my energy; it disconnects me from everyone and everything. The only things I do exchange are black darts, which makes me feel like I’m being rewarded with self gratification and justification and a self righteous knowing that I’m right – but in the end, I’m exhausted.
I’m so tired I can’t do one thing. I don’t have an ounce of energy left to spare for creating all those wonderful things I really want in my life like love and joy and beauty and passion or even for the tasks of the day.
I don’t have anything left in me to create these things in my life, let alone help anyone else to create them in theirs.
So, I strongly disagree with Carlos.
It does not take the same amount of work or energy. In the end, being in Song is our natural state of being; you do put out some energy, but you get rewarded a thousand fold for that output and you have the opportunity to make your life a dream come true and share that with everyone around you, you share that with the entire world, and in so doing enrich your relationships and the world beyond measure and approach every moment a new.
Being miserable takes from everyone and everything, especially from you and all it does is feed the monster of your mind and the monstrous distractive thoughtforms all around you. It’s really hard work. And all it does is make your life and the lives of your loved one’s and everyone else in the world miserable.
Most of us can not even imagine how profoundly the energies we’re putting out every moment of every day effect everyone around us, indeed the entire world.
Every single one of our thoughts and every single one of our feelings and emotions is a powerful prayer to manifest whatever we are thinking, feeling and emoting.
As they say, beware of your powers.
Learn to and choose to live your passion, live your joy, LIVE YOUR SONG and share it with the world. Let it hang out there. You’ll be amazed what can happen.
Love and Song and a wonderful Song filled New Year,
Helmut
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Well, okay then…….
That was some Powerful shit. May need a plunger to be able to move forward again on the Mask arena. I would say that this was written with the force of Knowingness and commitment to your Song and how you want to be in the world and how you would like the world to be.
Thank you for sending us your thoughts.
Love and Song Patrice
This is wonderful and real and immediately useful, and is worthy of more than just a few readings. Nicely put!
@Patrice Mascolo: Thanks Patrice! Love and Song to you too!
This was great. It is sooooo true.
Great writing Helmut. Thank you for allowing me to preview it. This is a familiar scenerio. You have “assassins” I have “vampires”. You hit the nail on the head. It is going to be read again,slower. Thanks again. Love and Song, Donna
What a force? I am curious to know why you wished for advance comment?
Oops–need to wear glasses when I type punctuation. The line is:
what a force!!
Hi Helmut, Thanks for the reminder!!! For the past three hours I’ve been
in the middle of a huge mask attack. I couldn’t have checked my email at a better time. Reading your article really helped me get back in my song. Thanks, Reta J
Wow!! That was great. Very well said and oh so true, for me at least. I’ve learned that negotiating is a very handy tool when dealing with masks, stopping the chatter and giving Song a chance. I find the more often I can return to Song, the longer I can stay in Song. Helmut I agree with you, mask activity takes any enormous amount of energy and is exhausting and really draining. I think people reading this that are not connected with Katasee will be able to understand what you’re saying and see how it relates to their own lives. It sows the seeds of Song.
Love,
Jody
Hi! Had to read it again. Made a copy. This came at such a good time. It is amazing how some times others write what you are thinking. Love to all. Donna
Thanks, Helmut, for this wonderful sharing.
It takes lots more muscles to frown than to laugh. As I was in the middle of snarly traffic yesterday, I stated singing and realized that traffic jams are just that- traffic jam. I have the power of choice to be happy or stressed no matter what is happening . I sang a funny song and felt just fine where I was; stuck in traffic. Now other times, I can be stuck in traffic and get so stressed that my shoulders and jaw hurt. Where is the fun in that!
Hi Helmut,
as always, I really enjoyed reading your post!! My goodness, it is sooo true about life-with-a-mask being exhausting, even truely physically exhausting! Yet it seems like a steep climb out of that when you are right smack in it.
Your mention of responsibility, how we sometimes/often even, don’t want to take responsibility and take the “easy” way out, made me think. I realize that I don’t abdict responsibility consciously when I do that – but I can consciously change it.
What has given me strength these last weeks when I feel in a tunnel, is reminding myself that I habe the ability to take control of what goes on in my mind. For most of my life I thought that if it’s on my mind it must be relevant. And did I ever get sucked into that one! These days, thanks to the workshop with you all, most of my focus is on taking back control over my thoughts, so as to create space for finding my song, how fleeting the moments of song may be. I now recognize that if I want to be happy I have to take responsibility for my thoughts.
Well, it’s a rocky road I have to say, a steep climb, but so worth it.
Thank you for making me think about that!!
Regine
It’s what happens when I got to work every day, and when I come home so exhausted. The daily struggle, the constant battles, to live there without the masks…I often lose.